The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is being set up by President-elect Donald Trump and will be run by people from outside the Beltway to cut away the mounds of fat from the federal government. There's a lot of fat to be cut away. The ratio of fat to useful tissue may well be double-digits to one; it's hard to know, but we can suspect that the DOGE under Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will be finding out.
Eliminating or at least minimizing entire Cabinet-level agencies is on the table. So, let's look at some of those agencies and evaluate the reasons for their continued existence — and the arguments for their dissolution.
This time, let's look at the Department of Commerce.
The Department of Commerce is one of the older cabinet-level agencies, having been founded in 1903 as the United States Department of Commerce and Labor before being reorganized as the Department of Commerce ten years later. The Department has been in a constant state of flux, with subordinate agencies moving in and out, but for our purposes, we'll look at Commerce as it is today. According to the Department of Commerce website, the core purpose is:
The Department of Commerce’s mission is to create the conditions for economic growth and opportunity for all communities. Through its 13 bureaus, the Department works to drive U.S. economic competitiveness, strengthen domestic industry, and spur the growth of quality jobs in all communities across the country. The Department serves as the voice of business in the Federal Government, and at the same time, the Department touches and serves every American every day.
The Department fosters the innovation and invention that underpin the U.S. comparative advantage. Its scientists research emerging technologies such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI). Companies use NIST and NTIA laboratories to conduct research and development (R&D). NOAA advances R&D of the commercial space industry and climate science. USPTO’s intellectual property (IP) protections ensure American innovators profit from their work.
Unlike the two departments we have already examined, Energy and Education, at present Commerce actually oversees a few distributed interests of the American people that are worth retaining; in fact, one is mandated by the Constitution, that being the Census Bureau. Commerce also oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, (NOAA), the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the International Trade Administration. These are legitimate distributed interests of the American people, and while some of them may well be able to be rolled into other departments - NOAA into the Department of the Interior, for example - it may make sense to retain them where they are, as the DOGE will have a lot of fish to fry in paring down our federal Colossus to something like its constitutionally-mandated size.
But there is a lot more in Commerce that the DOGE could take a big bite out of. Things like the Economic Development Administration and the Minority Business Development Agency can surely go, just for starters; commerce, after all, is something humans do naturally, with no government intervention required, and has been since the Neolithic when people were trading expertly-crafted stone tools for dried meat and hides for clothing. The best thing the government can do for business development is to stay the hell out of the way.
Commerce, as it is currently constituted, is carrying more blubber than all the whales in all the oceans of the world. If it is not eliminated outright by Elon and Vivek, it can surely be pared down to a mere shadow of its current, bloated self.
Previously on RedState: Targets for the DOGE: Do We Need the Department of Energy?
Targets for the DOGE: Do We Need the Department of Education?
The Department of Commerce has its fingers in far too many pies. Even Barack Obama knew this and was an advocate for a reorganization that never happened.
The Commerce Department now includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the Census Bureau. Under Obama's plan announced today, NOAA would migrate to the Department of the Interior, which is already home to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The rest of Commerce's scientific portfolio would be reconstituted under a new Cabinet department focused on trade and economic development. Jeffrey Zients, deputy director for management at the White House Office of Management and Budget, told reporters today that it would be a "tightly knit department with four pillars."
This, we should note, is merely a reshuffling. What is needed here is a swing of the axe, to cut away the bloat. The DOGE may elect to keep Commerce, and given a few of its core functions, which include one that is actually mandated by the Constitution (although it could also be moved to the Department of the Interior), they may choose to keep it. There are a lot of agencies to be examined, and swinging that Viking war-axe to eliminate all of the useless bureaucracy currently under this department may be what we would call a good start.
Commerce has proposed a $15 billion budget for 2025. Paring the Commerce Department back to those essential items would still save the taxpayers billions. That's worth doing. After all, as the saying goes, a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.
